Aug

Stuff That Happened In August

Some Columbia related news passed in the month of August. We rounded it up for you:

Aditya Mukerjee, CC ’12 and the former publisher of Spec, was detained at the airport after setting off an alarm because he had bedbug spray residue on his hands. “You’ve got to understand, when someone of your background, traveling alone, comes in and sets off our alarms, people get nervous,” an FBI agent told him, after denying him food and water for hours. Eventually, he was cleared to fly by the NYPD, TSA, FBI, and Homeland Security, but JetBlue refused to let him on the flight. (People on Twitter were not amused.) When he finally returned to his apartment, he discovered it had been raided by the authorities. (Aditya’s blog/Gawker)

“I have yet to enter a building in which there is not a cafe, in addition to the numerous coffee shops surrounding the campus. I wonder what students would do if Colombia ran out of coffee, and I’m not referring to the school.” (The New York Times)

Columbia researchers found that elementary students who were praised for their innate intelligence were much less willing to challenge themselves. Given how many College students are taking Astronomy to fulfill the science requirement, the same seems to be true of Columbia students. (New York Mag)

The late Edward Said‘s daughter, Najla Said, just published a memoir. And it turns out Professor Said is a lot like our dad, in that he thought his daughter was “wasting her college education” when she decided to take a class on postmodernism. (Salon)

10 Comments

it's more in-line with the columbia apparel that people actually wear on campus. if someone's wearing school clothes not straight from athletics, it seems to always be a simpler collegiate lettering or something of a more retro ilk.

I agree, really straightforward and clean. I think we need to get rid of the atrocious "CU Later" hoodies. Those are just god-awful. Also, instead of having CU on hoodies and shirts, why not just a clean baby blue "C"? Similar to the iconic harvard H or Princeton P. You dont see shirts that say HU or PU.

I want to say that the current athletics brand/theme is trying to be Ohio State/Michigan or another big sports school, but not even. They often have a solid, confident collegiate look. The current spread of 3d curved letters and lukewarm rah rah slogans is more like an aspiring mid-major that is trying so hard to be like one of the division I big boys.

If you had read the tumblr post by Mr. Mukerjee, he conjectured that his apartment was raided. I appreciate the call to arms against bigoted TSA policy, but if ya'll are going to be a new source, at least stick to the Facts.

(Text below for reference)

"When I entered my bedroom, a chill went down my spine: the photograph on my wall had vanished. I looked around the room, but in vain. My apartment was almost completely empty; there was no wardrobe it could have slipped under, even on the off-chance it had fallen.

To this day, that photograph has not turned up. I can’t think of any “rational” explanation for it. Maybe there is one. Maybe a burglar broke into my apartment by picking the front door lock and, finding nothing of monetary value, took only my picture. In order to preserve my peace-of-mind, I’ve tried to convince myself that that’s what happened, so I can sleep comfortably at night.

But no matter how I’ve tried to rationalize this in the last week and a half, nothing can block out the memory of the chilling sensation I felt that first morning, lying on my air mattress, trying to forget the image of large, uniformed men invading the sanctuary of my home in my absence, wondering when they had done it, wondering why they had done it."